Bolton vs Newcastle – Match Preview

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

10:36am Sunday, December 25th, 2011

Commented 32 times

The game at Bolton on Boxing Day is turning out to be an important game for Newcastle. As we all know only too well, after having such a great start in our first 11 games of the season and getting 25 points on the board, we’ve only managed two points in our last six games.

But that’s not as bad as it looks, because Newcastle played the two Manchester clubs away and Chelsea at home in the first three of those games.

So it’s the last three games at Norwich and against Swansea and West Brom at home, where things have gone wrong.

They went badly wrong at Norwich simply because we didn’t have any center-backs available, and while Simpson and Perch did their very best playing out of position in central defense, we didn’t have any player who could head the ball away.

Picky picky, but that cost us all four goals and the three points as went down 4-2.

The lads did very well at home to Swansea, but just couldn’t score and it ended up 0-0, but at least we kept a clean sheet and the performance was solid.

And now, since we haven’t won since we beat Everton 2-1 at home, the lads seemed to be a little bit anxious on Wednesday night against WBA, and lost that game surprisingly 3-2, and another 3 goals conceded.

In the last 6 games we’ve conceded 14 goals after conceding only 8 in the first 11 games of the season, so the stats tell where Newcastle’s problems lie.

If we had won against WBA last Wednesday, things wouldn’t look half as bad as they appear right now, and indeed if Newcastle win at Bolton, things could quickly start to look up.

Since Steven Taylor was injured at the end of the Chelsea game, and is now out for the season, we are in need of a tall player at the back who is a decent header of the ball.

Enter Mike Williamson, who is now fit again after his ankle injury has finally cleared up, but it took a long four months in recovery.

While Mike is not fully match fit, he will in all likelihood play against second bottom of the table Bolton tomorrow.

On paper this looks like an easy game for Newcastle but it will not be. The WBA game looked almost a certainty, and we could not get a win at home in front of 51,000 fans.

Bolton have won only one of their 8 home league games of the season, and in short, their home form is hopeless.

They are better away form home and have won three and lost six of their games on the road this season, so playing Bolton at home is the best place to play them at the moment.

Yohan Cabaye will be back from his one match ban for picking up 5 yellow cards, and his vast experience will help a lot tomorrow afternoon.

Haris Vuckic showed he is a star of the future against West Brom, but he will in all likelihood drop down to the bench, unless Alan Pardew gives him a chance as a withdrawn striker in place of the currently ineffective Leon Best.

And Davide Santon went off with a swollen knee at home time against West Brom, and will miss the game tomorrow, but the 20 year-old will probably be back for the game at Liverpool on Friday.

Davide will have his knee drained, and if his knee is going to keep swelling up, he should really have it looked at by somebody good to see if anything can be done to fix it.

Dr. Steadman over here in Vail, Colorado is one of the world’s authorities on knees, and he should probably take a visit there soon or in early summer.

Dr. Steadman operated on Alan Shearer and Michael Owen in the past.

Danny Guthrie – a Blackburn target in January if you believe the papers – is still out with his groin strain, and Dan Gosling will serve the last game of his three match ban after being sent off at Norwich.

We are hoping Mike Williamson comes into defense, and think this is a likely team that Alan Pardew will field at the Reebok Stadium:

32 comments so far

Ben Arfa has to start ahead of Best 110% if we want to be more creative and score more goals win more matches Ben Arfa simply has to start him and Cabaye filling up Ba’s tank full of goals, Ba and Benny will run rings around Boltons poor defence

We seem to be making a habit of signing players with Dodgy knees or ankles os some other sort of injury which needs Major Surgery in America to solve!

Alan Shearer, Michael Owen, Sylvain Marveaux, and now Davide Santon!

With Shearer it lenghthened his carreer for us which we all know what a legend he was and always will be ! If the others come back and become half the players for us that Shearer was in his day then we won,t have anything to moan about, but treatments in Florida or Colorado are,nt cheap !

@3: Is Collo on four yellow,s then? If that so is then we may have a big problem because he is so important in the back line we cannot permiteren leaving him out if fit!

There needs to be taken into consideration if the win against Bolton and the three points would be more enjoyable than beating Liverpool at their place on Friday!

I know which one of the two would give me more satisfaction! Winning Both would be great but a win at Anfield would be a big wish. Especially because we are playing against Carroll and Enrique!

anyways tomorrow shall bring joy and happiness all around the mighty toon because our lass got me some Newcastle boxers with the words Lucky Pants going round the waist line haha 3-1 win Ba will score another 2 and Benny boy will score a screamer

Geordietoon – I’m old enough to remember the days when football was played on Xmas Day, and Derby games against the Mackems on Boxing Day AND Xmas Eve. Played Southern League football myself on Xmas morning in the late 1950s. Happy Xmas to you all and to you Ed – hope you are bearing up, and take a well earned rest. HTL.

@Geordietoon89 Seriously are you comparing Rhodes and Long?? Let’s first remember that Long had banged in 25 goals last season in the championship and the year before was also getting the goals. Rhodes isn’t anyway as near ready as Long was. Remember that Long was scoring more than Carroll did in the league and we thought he was class.little did we know eh

would love to see this line up tommorow krul simmo colo willo santon ben arfa tiote cabaye jonas vuckic ba but i think hes more than likly to start with best and oberton on the wing and up top if vuvkic deserves to keep his place

Ed,as nufcsg & a few others more articulate than me have commented ” Thanks for the Blogs”,,how you have been able to carry on,whilst getting therapy is amazing,,much appreciated & looked forward to..All the best to Yourself,Family & Friends..

As soon as he returns we need to give him the number 9 shirt. He’s earned it in half a season. 3 goals behind Van Persie? I have no doubt he would be the premierships leading scorer if he got the supply he deserves from our wingers. The guy is a gentleman, keeps his head down, works hard and scores goals.

Please feel free to call me an idiot here boys but I think the No 9 shirt should be there to be won as an incentive to our strikers. For example: I know he hasn’t played a full season yet but Ba gets the shirt now however if by some divine miracle Shola overtakes him and scores more he gets ‘promoted’ and the shirt is his next season. At the end of next season we see which striker has scored the most, whoever it is he gets it the season after. Just a thought…

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health update

My latest bone scans and CAT scans were completed on Wednesday of this week and yesterday I met with my oncologist Dr. Dhruva to look over the results.

The stage four cancer remains stabilized and has not spread any further over the last six months.

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in early 2017 after being in remission for six years.

The cancer metastasized through the bones to different parts of the body and the treatment I am undergoing is hormone treatment.

There is no cure for stage 4 cancer but there are treatments (like Hormone treatment) that attempt to prolong life.

I am upbeat with the results and remain in awe of the doctors and nurses at the Rex Cancer Center here in Raleigh.

It's truly humbling to see how inspiring they are with their patients.

Ed Harrison

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